


The Education of Sam Winchester

by Madiholmes



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-19 01:19:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3590955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madiholmes/pseuds/Madiholmes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After returning to the bunker from John's rental unit, he finally opens up about his fears and childhood to Dean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Education of Sam Winchester

If Sam was perfectly honest, he wasn’t quite sure why he had gone back to his father’s storage unit. Especially without Dean. He knew John wouldn’t have had any information about the Mark of Cain, that he had been too obsessed over Azazel and demons not to know the massive story after that. Demons are one thing, prophecies another, but John died too early to fully recognize just how deep up shit’s creek Dean and him had gotten with angels, the apocalypse, Ruby, Bible Stories, and everything else afterward.

  
Sam had still been a child in those dark years after Dean had told him the truth, and it was suddenly expected for Sam to be trained as a fighter and carry his own way on hunts. In some ways Dean had been unkind as it not only took away Sam’s innocence about the supernatural, but also forced Sam to learn the truth about himself, his mother’s death, and only further distanced himself that much more from the real world.

But as a child, the demons and monsters had been much rarer than they had been after Sam died the first time. Maybe one or two are a couple of years would pop up to where John or Bobby recognized it, but they were rare and John would often run away as much as he would fight them. Sam only realized this later after everything, not understanding the extent of their childhoods or where John was coming from.

Making it back to the bunker late at night, Sam got out of the car and went in. Hoping that Dean would be asleep, knowing that he wasn’t. Sam had paid another five years on rental space in advance, and went through as many books as he could. For as a marinecorps, spartan lifestyle John had lived, he had weirdly been a domestic pack rat in the place. There were things Sam hadn’t seen in decades: toys and mementos that had been important to Dean and Sam once upon a time long since forgotten and out grown. Ultimately, Sam hadn’t found anything relevant for the mark just as predicted, but he couldn’t just not try. John was still the best hunter Sam had known, and to even think of not checking everything had been an anathema. It would have burned deep inside Sam, knowing that there would be nothing, but knowing he still had to go.  
Grabbing a bankers box from the backseat, Sam went inside and placed it on the map table, rummaged around a bit, pulled out a few things, but left the rest for the morning.

“Sammy?” Dean crept out into the foyer, hair all askew, looking all of six years old. Sam would never say it, but his brother could instantly go from looking thirty-seven years old to four in seconds. His face was so full of honest expression and, at times, stress that he could bounce from age to age mentally and physically. “Find anything?”

The real question was there between them, unspoken.

“Nothing much,” Sam shrugged. “Just some stuff from when we were kids.” Decided to go into the box instead of waiting. Using it as a distraction and a lie for both of them. “You apparently got an 83 on your times table for sevens.”

Dean looked confused, “You brought back my homework from second grade?”

“No,” Sam said smoothly. “I just saw a worksheet dad kept. Thought I’d tell you.”

“So what did you bring back?” Dean narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

“You know, stuff. That glove Bobby gave you. A stuffed animal I had as a kid. Kid’s sized cross bow.”

“The Little ‘Beam?! Man, I loved that thing.” Dean beamed. “You never forget your first crossbow.” Reached into the box and pulled it out, the weapon comically small in his hands. “This is going on my wall. Tonight. Check out the tension, see if the cord is still good. Bet I could still kill something with it. How about you? What did you bring back?”

Sam hesitated a bit too long to where they both almost got uncomfortable. Then Sam smiled himself, and pulled out a child's wallet. The vinyl had cracked from age and disuse, but still worked.

“Oh my god, I haven’t seen that wallet since you kissed that girl in eighth grade.”

“Heather Ohse?”

“That’s her. So why the wallet?”

“What?”

“Why did you bring it back?”

Sam didn’t answer.

“Sammy.”

Sam finally opened the flap, revealing over a dozen cards of different colors. Many bent and torn around the edges.

“What are those?”

“Well, you know we always moved and I was doing research for dad. And then before that, you’d drag me to all those libraries, because they gave us free books.”

“You kept all of those library cards? Why??”

“They were just…. Mementoes. I guess. I liked libraries and books, and they gave me a way to keep track of all those towns we used to live in. The more I studied and did homework, the more I knew I could go to college. I don’t think dad ever knew I’d kept them until after I’d moved out and left it behind. I just wanted a fresh start, and even they were too much of a reminder. I guess dad just kept it.”

Dean went quiet, “yeah, he’d do that sometimes.”

Sam flipped through a couple, smiling at some of the towns. “Honestly, that it was stupid on my part to keep them. They became a record of where we’d lived. I guess I just hadn’t really understood the danger. For all the fighting dad and I did, looks like he’d been right after all. God knows how many people I got killed.”

“What do you mean? How do you know that? There’s no way you were responsible for anyone being hurt. You were just a kid.” Dean blurted out, too fast and defensive. Almost sounding like he was overcompensating, lying somehow, but Sam understood the real reaction.

“Oh, people definitely got hurt, because of me, Dean. Even as a kid.”

Dean scrunched up his nose, confused and slightly frustrated. “Yeah, that is so not true, Sammy.”

Sam really did not want this conversation, but had it anyways. Looked down hard at the laminated Coralville, Iowa library card. “There was this… conversation I had once during ‘that time.’ It was this… mirror, and I was trapped in it, finally able to talk. Kinda like that Bloody Mary thing. Turns out that a lot of people I knew growing up had actually been demons. Way more up than even dad thought. They were, I guess, watching me specifically. Waiting. Some teachers. A couple people I knew. A CPS caseworker- Darlene in Fresno… My prom date.”

“…Ashleigh?! I totally hit on that chick.”

“Dean.”

Dean reached out, grabbed his brother’s arm, looked at him straight. “Sam. You never did anything as a child to hurt people. They were victims of every skanky demon and magical monster out there, not of you. Dad moved us to protect us personally, not to protect other people from you. Whatever load of shit Lucifer told you was a massive load of shit. He did those things to those people, not you. He was a sick fuck who had people possessed just so he could destroy the world. None of that is your fault. You did nothing wrong by keeping goddamn library cards.”

Sam didn’t believe him, not really, but it was still there, and knew that Dean was right on an objective level. He wasn’t to blame, but he was culpable. It hurt, but there he was. A child tainted internally, but also externally. That he hadn’t just brought death to their mother, but to countless others, all innocent outside of simply meeting him.

The bunker, as much of a home as it had become, also served to isolate Sam from the world. Others wouldn’t get hurt because of him, and he was rather glad for-

“Sam. You are not to blame for anything.”

Dean interrupted the internal monologue, refusing to give Sam even that ability to self loathe and fear. Sam smiled, finally, looked at his blocky print and handwritten signatures, showing his growth and aging.


End file.
